Saturday, November 22, 2008

I had a birthday last week, and I gave myself the gift of going to visit my sister in Atlanta for a couple of days.

While sitting on the plane, out of nowhere, I found myself slipping into this odd little daydream that went like this: What if Stephen King was on the same flight, perhaps sitting in first class. Would I have the nerve to go up to him and ask him for his autograph? (I've heard he's reluctant to sign autographs because notoriety makes him uncomfortable.) Btw, I had a basis for my little daydream, because Mr. King lives part of the year in the Tampa area. Anyway, I tried to decide whether I'd trouble him for his signature, and decided that yes, even though I'm not normally bold enough to act like an autograph hound, in his case I'd have to make an exception. You see, while I don't claim to be a fan of every single one of his books, I admire the man himself for being stubborn enough and tough enough to gut it out for many years in this business, and for writing my favorite writing book of all time, On Writing (did I use the word "writing" enough in that sentence?" :-)

Anyway, daydream over, the plane took off and I was on my way to Atlanta. So, that evening, my sister and brother-in-law gave me my present:

To summarize, in the morning I'm daydreaming about getting Stephen King's autograph, and that evening I had it. Had I somehow picked up that I was going to get it for my birthday, which sparked the daydream, or was it pure coincidence? Sixth sense, or serendipity? I'm sure I'll never know, but it was a pretty unusual coincidence, don't you think?

6 comments:

I'm gonna go with serendipity for a hundred, Jack. No matter what it was, though, you ended up with a way cool present.

I've read lots of Stephen King books over the years (Pet Semetary scared the bejeesus out of me) but my all-time favorite book by him is "On Writing" (which would make it my favorite book on writing then, like you.) I think that book should be required reading for all college-level writing courses.

Happy belated birthday, by the way! (Have you read "Insomnia" yet? I haven't, although I have to say if I had a signed copy I'd probably just take it down from the shelf to stare at Stephen's autograph and probably never get around to reading the story.)

A few months ago I had one of those work dreams where people from work show up and do odd things that in some way represent what they do in their jobs. One of them was wearing a long-sleeved blue dress shirt. In the year I'd known this person he'd never worn a long-sleeved shirt, even in winter. The next day I go to work -- he's wearing a long-sleeved blue dress shirt.

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I'm an author who writes romantically spooky tales about life among the undead. Call it Urban Fantasy or call it Paranormal Romance, my books are about devils, demons, ghosts, and other things that go bump in the night.